Be Brave
by songsingsitself
Summary: A retelling of a beautiful true story. A cold and lonely night finds new college graduate Ponyboy Curtis seeking comfort, happiness, and possibly love from a midnight showing at a movie theater.
1. Chapter 1

**2Hello, friends! This story is actually based on one that actually happened. Owl City just released a beautiful song called Be Brave about the night that he met his girlfriend at a midnight showing, and it is so beautiful and striking that I thought it would be a wonderful beginning to a story! This might be just a one-shot, but I am hoping for some feedback on whether it's interesting enough to turn into something more! Go listen to Be Brave, and please let me know what you think of this little story!2**

The biting winter wind sneaked up through the gap in the window pane, making a low, squealing sound. Ponyboy Curtis yawned and stretched his arms out in front of him like a cat, then rolled his shoulders, working out the kinks in his neck. He glanced up at the wall clock, now propped against one of the boxes marked KITCHEN, and groaned. It was 11:30.

He untangled his legs from an enormous blue blanket that his mother had made for Sodapop's fourteenth birthday, shortly after he had hit his growth spurt. Shuffling over to the front door, he shrugged into his coat and began to lace up his dark brown boots. Hearing the wind continue to howl, he sighed, taking his time with locking the door so he could avoid stepping out into the inevitable cold, then slammed the door, hurried down the hall, and went out the main door to the old clunker parked in front of his apartment building.

He shivered as he sat for a moment, waiting for the car to warm up, and glanced around at the empty street and the dark building. Spending the last three years of college here had been a good choice. It was away from the "student slums" and housed mostly older people, so he had a quiet place to rest and study, and it wasn't too far of a drive from school. It had taken him a little while to get used to living in a whole set of rooms by himself, and there were nights when he missed Darry and Sodapop desperately. Sometimes he even wished Two-Bit would come crashing in at two in the morning, knocking over that same old umbrella stand by the Curtis' front door in his wake. Of course it would have been annoying, but at least then he wouldn't have felt so lonely.

Ponyboy swallowed hard, looked over his shoulder, and pulled out of his parking spot into the street. He tried not to focus on the ache in his chest; he looked in his rear view and side mirrors an unnecessary amount of times, and he turned the radio on then back off again three times.

Darry had begged him to find something to do. Ponyboy had graduated from college in December, a semester early. Darry and his wife, Pamela, had been proud, but not too proud, as they had expected that to happen. That graduation day, Ponyboy had been filled to bursting with joy and excitement and possibilities, genres and titles for potential books swimming in his head. But two weeks later, December 17 happened, and nothing would ever be the same.

"You've got to live, Ponyboy," Darry had told him quietly as they both stayed up late in the living room one night. The clock above the TV set chimed midnight. "How long has it been since you went on a walk? Seen a movie?"

Ponyboy had been silent; not because he didn't want to answer his brother, but because he didn't know how. He had never been good at thinking words inside his head; too many thoughts flooded in at the same time, and it was impossible for him to grab hold of one and not three, then make the words move from his brain to his mouth. He wished that he could just write everything instead of say it. His brain and the pen were connected, and he didn't even have to think when he wrote. It was the most freeing thing.

"And right now, you look like you're reading a book, but you've been on page 12 for the last hour."

"I'll try and do better," was all Ponyboy could think of to say. Darry frowned and leaned forward.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean-" Darry thought for a moment. "I'm just saying this because I care." With that, Darry stood up, clapped his younger brother on the shoulder, and left to go to bed.

On his way home from work, Ponyboy drove past the Circle Cinema, who proclaimed on January 4 they would be holding a midnight showing of West Side Story. He had never been that into musicals, but neither had most of Tulsa, so he thought it might be a good night to get out of the house and also not have to talk to people, two things that were important to him at the time.

He turned onto Wildflower Street on that cold, black night, and found a place to park next to a truck whose color was the same of Two-Bit's rusty hair. Ponyboy had never been to a midnight showing, and the silence and stillness of the ticket booth, the candy counter, and of the theater itself made him feel a strange mix of comforted and unsettled. He found an aisle seat high in the back, and people watched as maybe fifteen other people entered the room.

The beginning of the movie was the overture and the credits, and he wished there was something more interesting on the screen. Why couldn't they do this part at the end?

The door to the room slammed, and he heard some girls quietly giggling. They rounded the corner, one of them throwing a piece of popcorn at the head of the girl in front of her. Ponyboy glanced briefly at them, then turned his eyes back to the screen. He felt something inside his chest rise and quickly looked back at the pair.

The one in the front had on a lacy dress, which looked pink but that could have just been the red background on the screen. A dark sash draped her waist, and the dress seemed to float around her as she whirled to whisper something to her friend. When she turned back around, she was close enough for him to see how her wavy blond hair framed her face, how her eyes crinkled when she smiled, and how her smile was for everyone she saw. The shadows decorating her made it hard to tell, but he was sure that her eyes met his for a split second, and he wasn't sure what to do with the rest of his face, but by the time he thought to smile back it was too late. She had passed him.

 _Would it be strange if I looked over my shoulder at her?_ Ponyboy wondered, and after arguing with himself for a minute, as casually as he could he glanced over his shoulder. The girl and her friend had found seats secluded from everyone, at the very top row. The friend was still throwing popcorn at her, and they were whispering and pointing at the screen.

Ponyboy didn't know how long he watched the closest thing to a princess he had ever seen, but when someone in the movie spoke for the first time, he broke from his trance, and moved his eyes to her friend.

He couldn't make out the curly haired popcorn thrower's eyes, but he could feel her staring at him. He felt his cheeks burn. How long had she seen him doing that? Did she think he was a creep? He quickly turned around and looked away, and tried to pay attention to the movie.

The movie was about two groups of boys that were in rival gangs, and there were times when Ponyboy's heart hurt as he remembered his own gang, but there were also moments of affection and joy. The boys had nicknames for one another, they looked out for one another, they had rumbles. It had been a long time since his life had looked like that-about seven years.

It had been seven years since the longest to weeks of his life. The week he met Cherry Valance at the drive-in, when Johnny killed Bob, when they ran away to Windrixville, the fire, when he lost two boys that were as good as brothers, and when his life as he knew it changed forever. Losing the sense of normalcy that he had developed after his parents died, less than a year later, along with losing two of his best friends.

Ponyboy tried to move his mind in a different direction, but it was hard when it wasn't just thoughts coming to the surface-it was flashes of things he had seen, feelings he had had. _You should have left those feelings at home, in that cold, empty apartment,_ he told himself fiercely. _You're here to live, so do it._ He focused on the screen, which was depicting a dance going on at a gym.

But then, the entire gym blurred out except for two strangers, a tall boy in a suit, and a petite girl in a lacy white dress. They beheld each other, not saying anything, and began to dance. The music was soft, slow, and light. As they twirled, they didn't take their eyes off of each other. They were clearly mesmerized by each other, and Ponyboy was mesmerized with them. He could feel the questions that the main character, Tony, was asking: _Who is she? What is her name? How can I know more about her?_

Soda had told him once that a normal person goes to the movies and they're entertained for a couple hours, but Ponyboy could go to the movies and get so swept up in what was going on that he became part of the story. He did the same with books, and writing. It all helped him escape to somewhere else, somewhere he watch someone else's life, live it with them, process the events with them, and in turn do the same with his own.

Fear bubbled up inside of him as he watched the couple sing to each other, hold each other, delight in each other without even knowing each other, and he realized he was not the only one who had fallen in love that night. _I've only seen her, I don't even know her,_ he reminded himself, pushing all thoughts of the twirly girl out of his mind.

"Tonight, tonight, it all began tonight. I saw you and the world went away!" The words of the song made him feel like he was flying. He knew Two-Bit would tease him to no end if he found out Ponyboy had gone to a musical, especially because he had gone by himself, not to appease a date. "Tonight, tonight, the world is full of light, with suns and moons all over the place..."

What seemed like a minute passed and then the two gangs were going to rumble, and he could feel their energy, something he had not felt in seven years, not since that last rumble. Remembering that night gave him a sick feeling in his stomach, and the next scene was hard to watch. He had to turn away, and when he turned, he tried not to glance at her.

West Side Story was a roller coaster he had never before experienced. It started off slow, and then suddenly, it was 2:30 in the morning, the screen was dark, and people were mirroring the last scene of the film: walking out silently in small groups, the gunshot that took a life that was too young still echoing around the room.

Ponyboy's heart was beating fast as he repeated to himself _it's just a movie, it's just a movie, it's just a movie._ It was hard to forget something like seeing your friend senselessly killed and the pain and aimlessness on the other gang members' faces in the movie ripped at his heart as he remembered that night. He took some deep breaths with his eyes closed and put his face in his hands. He knew he was tired, the movie had stirred his emotions, and the flashbacks happened sometimes. It was a dangerous combination.

And then he jumped; he had felt a hesitant hand on his shoulder. "Hey, are you okay?" a soft voice asked him, just above a whisper.

The lights slowly faded back on, and he saw her. The first thing he noticed was that her dress was not pink, it had just been the reflection of the red on the screen; her dress was almost exactly like the white lacy one Maria had been wearing at the beginning of the movie, with a deep red sash around it. She looked so soft and beautiful that instead of being nervous, his breath slowed and he relaxed.

"Yeah." Then he realized he had tears in the corners of his eyes, and he quickly wiped them with his sleeve. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks."

She smiled at him, lingering on the step. "Movie's over, kids," a tired man said in a rumpled movie theater uniform. "Time to head home." Ponyboy stood and walked with the girl and her friend out to the parking lot. The girls kept glancing at each other, he could tell from behind them, and he felt like there was something they were waiting to talk about until they got to the car. He watched them from his truck, making sure that they made it safely to a little yellow car, the only other one left in the parking lot. "Goodnight," he called to them, waving.

Her coat twirled with her as she turned back around to face him. "Goodnight. Sweet dreams."


	2. Chapter 2

As sunlight itself was just waking up, Ponyboy Curtis rose from his former living room floor and began to move his life somewhere new.

The world was still sleeping as he carried box after box to his truck, and he was giddy with the excitement one feels when a new place to call one's own is on the horizon. Often, when someone has recently been through heartbreak and sadness, it is more comfortable for everything to remain the same, but ever since December 17, Ponyboy had been feeling like he was trapped on a hot, crowded bus in the middle of July, and he felt like this was the first step to exiting that bus.

At just before eight on that Saturday morning, Pamela Curtis was sitting at her old, tired table with a plate of blueberry muffins in front of her. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of morning and silence. A knock interrupted her a few seconds later, and she tried not to be disappointed. She had to get used to interruption happening more and more often, what with twin four-year-olds, another little one on the way, a new guest in their house, and her bear of a husband.

Her slipper-snuggled feet took slow, heavy steps, and she remembered fondly when she would skip to the door at a knock. This big baby had added several pounds to her lanky frame, but she praised God that it wasn't twins again. Pushing the white frilly curtains back, she peeked on tiptoe through the window and saw Ponyboy's smiling face. She beamed back at him, surprised by joy. It had been three weeks since she had seen him smile. His frowns had been so familiar, his tears so often, that she had sometimes pictured him as a sad old man, never to be happy again. Thankfully, he was a happy twenty-two year old again.

"Good morning!" she wished him as he stumbled in with a box marked BOOKS-1/6, and Pamela made a mental note she was sure her pregnant brain would forget about finding the boy a bookshelf. Ever since he had gotten a job at the used book store downtown, he had acquired more books than his family put together would ever read in their lives. "How are you?"

"I'm good," he replied confidently. As he walked to the other side of the room and put the box down, Pamela put her hand over her heart as it beamed. The gray cloud that had stormed over their heads the last several days seemed to dissipate, and she sighed in relief. When Ponyboy turned around, she could see how bright his eyes were, and she grabbed him in her arms.

Hugging a pregnant woman is an awkward, difficult undertaking, but Ponyboy made it work. He held her to his chest and her head nestled under his chin. "I'm so, so glad, honey," she whispered to him, her throat constricting. "I'm so glad that you're good now."

"Me too," he said, looking over her head. His human tree trunk of a brother was leaning against the threshold of the bathroom at the end of the hall. They exchanged a smile, and Darry seemed to know Ponyboy's feelings without him even having to tell him, which was wonderful, because Ponyboy didn't even know what he was feeling. He was moving into his older brother's basement, he felt like it was okay to not be sad for a moment, and he didn't even know that girl's name.

 **44**

Alice Orman was was her name, and as Ponyboy and his family were experiencing peace for the first time since the death of his brother three weeks ago, she was spray painting a wall pink.

Her wavy blonde hair was sleepy, tied haphazardly on top of her head with a ribbon. She had her "painting pants" on: rolled-up jeans featuring sparkles of every color you could think of. A pencil was hanging out of her mouth like one might leave a cigarette, and her toe was tapping against the wall, which meant that the radio was playing a song that she liked very much.

A voice whined from down the hall, echoing off the wooden floor. _"Why_ are you up so _early?"_

"Ecau I fru fruck frith frithfirathion," Alice replied, shaking her can of paint.

 _"What?"_

Taking the pencil out of her mouth and beginning to write in the middle of the wall with large, long strokes, Alice repeated, "I was struck with inspiration."

"Let me be there in your morning, let me be there in your night," Olivia Newton-John sang from the radio that sat on the counter next to the oven. Alice's head swayed a little along with the music.

There was the comforting early morning sound of feet creaking on the wooden floor and a blanket being dragged behind them. "Oh, _we_ _re_ you now?"

"Yup," was all Alice had to say about that, and then she scooted back to see the whole wall. She kicked a few empty paint cans aside so they wouldn't be swept up by the blanket.

The owner of the feet and the blanket had the name of June, and she looked it. Her hair was straight and red, like Pippi Longstocking or Anne of Green Gables, but more than anything she loved to construct it into large, bouncy curls. But being the summer that she was, she didn't have the motivation to make her hair look pretty, not when there were things like flowers and bare feet and dances to enjoy. June plopped down in one of their mismatched chairs, leaning forward and narrowing her eyes at the wall. Scratched out in dark pencil were the words, "BUT FIRST, YOU."

"But first...who?"

"I don't know." Alice sat with her legs bent and her arms circled around them. She hugged herself and stared at the wall. "Him. Whoever He is."

"He...like..." June paused. "The boy from the movie house?"

Alice shrugged, her brown eyes still watching the words as if she expected them to rearrange their letters and tell her something different. More to herself than to June, she said quietly, "I don't know if he...is He, or not." She stood up, took one last look at the wall, and then started across their delightful old floor. "I don't even know his name."

June slowly got up from her chair and stretched, her fists still clutching the blankets so she looked like a sleepy flying squirrel. "Pancakes?"

"I hope that you mean chocolate chip pancakes."

"Hmph. I'm insulted that you have to ask." June opened the refrigerator and pulled out a stick of butter. "Are pancakes even pancakes without chocolate chips?"

 **44**

Maybe you already know this, but Tulsa, Oklahoma is not some simple, po-dunk town. This bustling city is home to a few hundred thousand people. So maybe you thought Ponyboy and Alice would easily and quickly just run into each other at the same McDonald's, but you are sadly mistaken.

Most other people would meet someone cute at a movie theater and be giddy for about five minutes, then forget about it for something (or someone) else. But if a Girl is going to paint something on her wall to commemorate that moment of meeting, and a Boy is going to hum show tunes that remind him of the first time he said goodnight to her, then you know this must be going somewhere.

And after all, as many a wise person has said, good things take time.


	3. Chapter 3

**For anyone who would be amused at the thought, Ned was inspired HIGHLY by Ron Swanson. Where my Parks fans at? Here is chapter 3! I do not own The Outsiders!**

Alice was careful not to let anyone know this, but the Ruby Jewel diner wouldn't have been able to function without her.

On her contract was the title of "waitress."

Not "stand-in cook."

Not "owner's personal calendar."

And definitely not "employee schedule-maker."

And yet, she still found herself stepping in and flipping dozens of pancakes when Curly Shepard didn't show up for work, reminding the owner of the diner of the impending arrival of the health inspector or his dentist appointments, and taking into account gymnastic meets, birthdays, and doctor's appointments when making the schedule.

This particular morning, Alice was wearing her cook hat. She tried to be patient with Curly; he was really trying to get his life together and be a good dad, he just needed a calendar so he didn't overbook himself. It was a bit of a sleepy Monday morning, so it wasn't too stressful for her to rocket between the kitchen and the floor.

"Alice, get out here and see this BANGIN' boy!" Tammy, the waitress who was eternally popping gum in her mouth, hurried into the kitchen and grabbed a muffin.

Alice wrinkled her nose. Surely, whatever this boy looked like, there had to be a better word to describe him than "bangin'."

Tammy flipped her dark ponytail over her shoulder and started filling a to-go cup with coffee. "Go give this to him so you can look at his face!"

"I can't, I'm trying to perfect these pancakes," Alice mumbled, scowling at the spatula. Whenever she made pancakes, they were not perfectly round, and she had to know why.

"Your loss!" Tammy sang in her high-pitched squeal, grabbed a muffin for herself, and bustled out of the room again.

Ponyboy Curtis didn't know just how close he was to the girl in the white dress from the movie house. Not only was he at the diner where Alice worked, on a day she was working, but she would normally be the one taking his order. The perfectionist was so focused on making beautiful pancakes that he just missed her. He wasn't upset-he had no idea she worked at the oldest diner in town.

"Bye now," the ponytailed waitress said, batting her eyelashes at him.

"Uh, see ya," Ponyboy muttered uncomfortably. He had none of Soda's skill at talking to girls, no matter how many times his brother had tried to teach him. He took a bite of his muffin, pushed the door open with his shoulder, and walked back to his truck.

Tulsa was a big city, and Ponyboy loved to go on adventures by himself, exploring its independent businesses. Today, he had a little bit of time before he needed to open up the bookstore at 9, so he decided to pick up some breakfast and sit in a nearby park. It had just been yesterday when he had been able to focus on reading books again. His latest was _The Old Man and the Sea_ by Ernest Hemingway.

"Now is no time to think of what you do not have," he read, "think of what you can do with that there is." He moved his finger to hold his page and held the book shut for a moment, looking at the half-frozen pond in front of him.

Ponyboy, Darry, and Pamela had been surprised at how many battered ex-soldiers came from all over the country to attend Soda's funeral. Every time there was a stranger with dead eyes in the receiving line, they knew who they must have been. Some of them just shook their hands and gave their condolences, but others shared stories. It made Ponyboy want to write a book about how many lives Soda had touched, so others would see how easy it was to make life easier for others.

"Your brother was so encouraging," a young woman was telling Darry. "There were so many times when my Andrew just wanted to give up and die, but Soda didn't let him forget about all the good things he had. Andrew had the depression, you know, still does. That's why he couldn't come today." She grabbed Darry's hand and stared into his eyes. "But I needed to come and say thank you. Without Soda...I would have lost my Andrew." She wrapped her arms around Darry, beginning to cry. Darry's eyes looked over her shoulder at nothing, blank and unfeeling.

"Man, he was funny," was all a tall, black-haired man had to say, and shook Ponyboy's hand.

A man in a wheelchair stopped in front of Ponyboy. "How are you holdin' up, kid?" he drawled, his dark eyes so similar to Soda's boring up into Ponyboy's.

"Not great."

The man took a deep breath. "You know, he really missed you, man. He got so excited whenever he'd get a letter from you, and he talked about how proud he was of you all the time. Said we better look out for any book we see from a guy named Ponyboy Curtis, because he was sure that you were gonna write lots of 'em." His eyes were full of tears when they met Ponyboy's again. "You better keep writin', kid. Don't you let him down."

"I'll try," Ponyboy whispered, and waited for the man to go into the sanctuary of the church before he ran out of the line to the bathroom to try to get a hold of himself.

Several hours after the funeral, Darry had gone to bed early, although Ponyboy and Pamela both knew that he wasn't sleeping. Instead of aimlessly staring at the TV, Pamela had suggested they do a puzzle. He generally held things inside until they exploded out of him, and he broke down and told her.

Soda had hated the term sister-in-law and refused to use it in regard to Pamela. To he and Ponyboy, she was so much more than just the woman their brother had married; she was their sister. They had never had a sister before, but with the way she listened to them, took care of them, and didn't take any of their crap, she definitely fit the bill. After Sodapop had been drafted, Ponyboy didn't have anyone who he felt he could talk about things with anymore, but he learned to feel so comfortable around Pamela, it wasn't hard.

Pamela was silent for about ten seconds after Ponyboy finished telling her about what the man in the wheelchair had said, and they were such long, painful seconds. "Pony," she said slowly, "Soda would be happy to know that you were doing anything that you were good at and made you happy."

Ponyboy put his face in his hands. "You are an amazing writer. We all know it, we know you're good at it, that it makes you happy. Maybe it will make you happy all your life, or maybe you'll discover something else. No matter what it is, please know that Soda would be so proud of you, not just because of the things that you accomplish, but because of the person that you are." Ponyboy's tearful gaze met hers, and he was surprised at how angry Pamela looked. "You're _never_ gonna let him down, okay?"

"Okay," he whispered, clearing his throat. "Thanks, sis."

"You're welcome." She took a deep breath and her mouth smiled in a way as if it was trying to convince the rest of her face to do the same. "Now, do you see any more edge pieces?"

As soon as Pamela stopped speaking, a car with a messed up muffler drove by, and Ponyboy was pulled out of his painful memories by its bellow.

x-x-x-x-x-x

Ned, of Ned's Books, was a simple man.

He liked tall brunettes. He liked coffee and pancakes in the morning. He liked a good book when he was in the mood for one, especially if it was one about guns or large ships. He also liked a worker that minded his own business, did his job, and left. So that meant that he also liked Ponyboy Curtis.

The kid had a weird name, which Ned didn't like, but he supposed the boy's father was more to blame than he was.

Ponyboy came in Monday through Friday at nine to open the shop, took his lunch shortly after the noon tornado alarm test went off, and left at 5. Ned mostly sat in his office (which was really just a small cave that he carved out for himself out of several stacks of books) playing solitaire, paying bills, and reading things written by Mark Twain.

It was a fine arrangement; Ned liked books, but hated people; Ponyboy liked books and he liked people.

Like he did every day at noon, Ponyboy went down to the basement with the lunch he had brought from home and his current reading material. Just as the door to the basement shut, the front door of the store opened.

Alice walked into the bookstore on a mission. She was determined to find a book that matched June for a congratulations-on-your-new-job present. She knew she probably wouldn't be able to find something yellow and candy-coated with a sparkling story line, but she was going to try her best to find whatever came close.

Her pink ballet flats lightly tapped the floor as she turned around, searching the room. "Excuse me," she called, "does anyone work here?"

Ned kept reading his book, but her "Hello?" a few seconds later jolted him into reality, remembering that Ponyboy had just left for lunch. He cursed under his breath. "Uh, yeah, me," he stammered, exiting his hidey-hole.

Alice looked at him curiously for a moment. "Hi. I need to find a book for my friend."

Ned looked like a deer in the headlights. "Er."

 _This is Ponyboy's job! This is why he's here! I haven't had to do this for ten years!_ he thought angrily, his eyes wandering to the basement door, but he knew he should let the kid have his peace.

"We have..." He struggled to think of books girls liked. "Little Women. Anne of Green Gables." He scrunched up his face a little bit, as if the words kicked his tongue as they exited his mouth. "Little House in the Big Woods-"

"No, none of those," Alice said quickly, brushing away the titles with her hand.

Ned also didn't like to be interrupted. "Well, why not?" he growled.

"She's got all those already."

Ned looked anxiously at the basement door and then at the clock. What was he even supposed to do?

"Well, I'll have a look around then," the girl said lightly, and tiptoed off toward the children's section.

June usually refused to read any books written for adults. She found them boring, plotless, and loveless. Even the ones that were described as romance novels had the same characters as any other, an unrealistically fast pace, and a cheapened view of love.

When one tries to think of magical, captivating stories, most of the time they are children's books. Adults are far too easily pleased with their true crime and their cheap paperback romances. Children need to be romanced to reading, and their hearts need to be stirred by fantastical characters and faraway places. Those were the kinds of stories that she loved.

"You need more children's books!" Alice called to Ned when she saw the sad amount of shelves there were devoted to the books. He merely grunted, and Alice noticed an author's name that was too distinct to ignore.

Roald Dahl, a name she still was not sure of how to pronounce, had written a few of June's very favorite stories: _James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Fantastic Mr. Fox._ Recently, he seemed to have come out with a new book: _Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator._

The title alone thrilled her, and she knew for sure that June didn't have this one. She flipped through the pages, smiling at the way the author had with words: "You'll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that." She frowned a little; she had been trying to tell herself that for a long time.

"Poppyrot and pigwash," she read aloud, and giggled. This was the one that June needed on this dreary winter day.

After wandering through the art and cookbook sections, she made it back up to the empty counter. "Excuse me, sir? I'm ready to check out!"

She jumped when out from behind an enormous stack of books, the grumpy, mustachioed man edged out slowly. He said nothing to her as he took her money and gave her a receipt, and to her "Good-bye!" he merely nodded. The girl shut the door behind her, and the bell on top clanged at the same time that Ponyboy's feet made their way up the stairs.

"Somebody come while I was gone?" he asked, moving behind the counter again.

"Yes." Ned hoped he would never have to do that again.


	4. Chapter 4

June loved her brand-spanking-new bank teller job. She loved it because she got to talk to people all day long, she got to hear her favorite sound in the world (the clinking sound change makes when it's handed to someone) and because she had a picturesque drive home through downtown. One day, she saw a sign that she had been waiting for.

It happened to be THE sign for the Circle Cinema, and they were having another midnight showing. She had been hoping that they would, but the turnout from the last one had made her think the chances were bleak. THE MUSIC MAN JANUARY 22 MIDNIGHT, the sign shouted.

As June passed the one streetlight she saw every day that was prettier than the rest, she grew excited, thinking about the fluttery floral dresses that this film called for. She and Alice preferred to invite a trip to the movies as a personal challenge, as if they were going to a theme party at a college dorm and not a musty, cold, old building in the center of town.

The remainder of her way home, the parking lot, and the stairs into their apartment building seemed to fly by her as she rushed to tell her friend the news. The flat black shoes she donned for work danced like tap shoes up the stairs, and she rounded on each landing with such momentum that she nearly crashed into their landlord.

"Whoops!" was all she felt she had time to say, and she hurried up two more flights of stairs, then threw open their pink door. Mr. Silver was grumbling down the opposite way, because June had nearly run him over, and also because he was still annoyed about that darn pink door. His wife had told him not to buy an apartment building in the student slums. These young people were much too self-assured.

"Guess WHAT!" June ran into the living room, where Alice was stretched out on the couch with a book in her hands. June stopped for a moment. "Come on, Anne of Green Gables _again?"_

"What?" Alice replied, choosing to ignore the jibe and dog-earring the page she was on.

"There's going to be another midnight show at the movie house!" June loved to pace when she talked, and as she did, she straightened a shelf of books. "Tulsa is FINALLY getting some culture! And it's going to be The Music Man! We have the perfect outfits for that one AND we know all the songs! It's going to be such a good time!"

Somewhere near the end of her sentence, she realized Alice had froze. "What's wrong with you?"

"June...what if...HE is there?"

Since He wasn't her He, June hadn't even thought about that prospect. Her first thought was just to be excited to have an acceptable reason to be out of the house at midnight, while all Alice could think about was that boy she had barely spoken two words to. June smiled; if he had been at one midnight showing, there was a good chance he would be at the next one. Especially if he was as interested in Alice as she was in him. Sure, they had barely shared any words, but June had noticed him watching her when they walked in late from the movie.

She didn't want to get Alice's hopes up though. She had four brothers and she knew boys could be stupid and slow sometimes, and Alice tended to think the best possible thing about everyone.

"Well, if He is there, then we'll just have to make you look extra cute then, won't we?"

Alice positively beamed, and followed June to their closet to plan their costumes.

Darry's dog was a snorer.

Ponyboy groaned a little, muttering under his breath. The Golden Retriever kept on, laying on her back, paws pressed against her nose.

Ponyboy cracked one eye open. _What kind of dog sleeps like that?_

He shuffled up the stairs to the dining room, with Sammy the snorer, who was now awake, hopping up after him, hoping they were going to play. "I'll be back later, girl," he told her, patting her sweet, shiny head.

Darry had done really well for himself. With the proceeds from his booming construction business, he and Pamela had bought a small farm on the outskirts of town. The last two weeks of Ponyboy living there had been some of the best of his life. There were two horses, bundled snugly in the small barn right now, along with a cow and some chickens. They had the perfect tree for a tree house in their backyard, and Darry planned to build one in the springtime. By then, the twin girls would be five, which seemed like a good age for one.

Ponyboy closed the door behind him, and looked out into the dark, still night. It was winter, and it was 1974, but suddenly, there was Soda, swinging from one of the tree branches. His long bird legs kicked out from under him. "You know, Dar, when the babies, come, they can just live in the tree house. You and Pamela only need to check on them once in a while!" Ponyboy hooted with laughter, especially at the sight of Pamela's narrowed eyes, tired from nearly nine months of Soda's ridiculous parenting suggestions.

But as soon as the smile came, it vanished, and so did that memory.

Ponyboy swallowed, trying to loosen up the horribly tight feeling in his throat, and hurried to his truck.

The frigid air was so still that night that it seemed to make the stars shine brighter. The night was clear and full of hope, and the sound of Alice's high heels clicking across the parking lot shouted of it. "Showing The Music Man in the winter is not conducive to our thematic outfits!" She pulled her pink pea coat more tightly around her body.

"Showing The Music Man in the winter is not conducive to YOUR thematic outfit," June corrected smugly, "because MINE is perfectly comfortable."

"You only get one second impression, and mine is not going to be while wearing a _marching band uniform,_ " Alice hissed. June giggled and threw the heavy door open.

June, who had been initially excited about wearing pretty dresses, was just too much of a Summer to go without pants in the middle of January. Even so, she matched the theme, and even though the legs of her younger brother's marching band uniform dragged on the ground, it was great fun to don a different look for the evening.

"Suit yourself," June responded, and snickered. "Get it...because I'm kind of wearing a suit?" She glanced over at Alice, who loved puns more than almost anything. Her friend's eyes were wide, and she was trying not to bite her liip.

"Alice," June began slowly, "remember what I've told you. Boys can be kind of dumb, they don't think about things the way we do, so he might not even be here-"

"I _know,"_ Alice breathed, then told the bored teenager at the counter that they wanted a large popcorn and a Coke.

"Two straws, please," she added as an afterthought. She couldn't stand the way that June chewed on the straw.

June tried not to thump too far behind the skirt of Alice's lacy pink dress as she followed her inside the theater. There were only two other people in the theater, and neither of them were her mystery man. Wilting a little, she sat in her seat from last time. She took her large, flowery hat on and off. "What if he doesn't recognize me?" she said, more to herself than June.

"Oh, he will," June muttered, smiling. "Eat some popcorn, you've hardly eaten anything all day." Alice took one piece, then she at on her hands, perching at the edge of the seat. Her blue eyes, more gray in the light of the silver screen, were on the door. "Maybe he'll take a leaf out of our book and be late." The credits began, snapping both girls to the realization that they had managed to arrive somewhere on time for once. They slowly turned to stare at each other.

Five minutes into the movie, Alice fell back against her seat, her brain in an argument with her face. She loved The Music Man with all of her soul! The music was delightful and the costumes were charming! She wanted to be excited to watch it again, but she wasn't. She tried to hum tunelessly along with the first song.

Then the door slammed, and she threw the popcorn in her hand all over June.

She sat up straighter in her seat. It was Him! Oh, and was he worth the wait! She smiled as she noticed his auburn hair was gently tousled, like he had recently woken up, and he wore a dark green jacket over nice jeans. He was still except for his eyes, which were darting around the theater.

"Wave, or something!" June whispered urgently. "He's looking for you!"

"How...how do you know?" Alice didn't know why, but she felt like she needed to look away and ignore him.

Have you ever been extremely attracted to someone you do not know well? Then you know that we often do very silly things that would hinder our chances with them, rather than act on our thoughts and feelings. Alice was delighted at the thought that he might be looking for her, and longed to wave him over, but something held her back.

June could have drawn the whole theater's attention to them by yelling "HEY! OVER HERE!" but she knew that would embarrass her friend. Still, she could see that the boy needed a little help. She pretended to be adjusting her tall marching band hat, but instead was making a pointing motion over Alice's head and staring right at the boy.

His face broke out into a wide, cheesy grin, and June chuckled a bit. Alice turned to look at her, but June had slapped her hand to the hat. "I don't want it to fall off," she explained, and Alice wrinkled her eyebrows at her and turned back to the screen.

Ponyboy Curtis was not straightforward like Darry or daring like Sodapop, but he did try to be, so he sat in the row across from the two girls. She-that is to say, the loveliest creature he had ever seen-was sitting in the aisle seat, so he sat in the one across from her. There was only two feet separating them, but he was glad, because he was sure that his heart was thumping so hard she would have been able to hear it. He turned to her and smiled bravely. It took him aback at how much her eyes shone at him. He wanted to keep looking at them, but he saw her friend smirk over her shoulder, so he figured he should probably watch the movie.

He had never really been one for music; he loved beautiful and emotive words, he just preferred them to be printed across a page. West Side Story had been his first musical experience, and The Music Man couldn't be more different. Some con man was succeeding in convincing an entire town that they needed a marching band, and he didn't know how to play any instruments, so he was teaching the kids to THINK the music so hard that they would eventually be able to play them. Ponyboy found himself rolling his eyes a lot, and then he became self-conscious. He didn't want the Girl to think that he was stuck-up, or not enjoying the movie.

He peeked over at her to see how she found it. She was sitting so tall in her seat, and her eyes watched the screen almost desperately as the snooty librarian sang a song. She softly sang the words along with her.

 _"All I want is a plain man, all I want is a modest man, a quiet man, a gentle man, a straightforward and honest man_

 _To sit with me, somewhere in a cottage in the state of Iowa..._

 _And I would like him to be more interested in me than he is in himself,_

 _And more interested in love than in me,_

 _And if occassionally he'd ponder what makes Shakespeare and Beethoven great..._

 _Him, I could love til I die,_

 _Him, I could love til I die."_

Her crazy redheaded friend glanced at her, then glanced at Ponyboy, and nodded to him. He smiled softly at the Girl, more interested in hearing her sing than the girl in the movie, but he could barely strain his ears to hear her voice.

The movie ended with a cheerful parade of children who seemed to magically be able to play their instruments, the snooty librarian overlooking the fact that she was in love with a man who had lied to the whole town, and a lot of questions in Ponyboy's mind. He stretched and pretended to casually look around.

The girls quietly stood, and he immediately followed them down the stairs and into the lobby. He smiled to himself when he realized the Girl had on the same pink, frilly dress as the snooty librarian in the movie. "Do you own costumes from all the musicals?" was not the first real words he expected to speak to her.

"Almost," snorted the redhead, but the Girl beamed at him.

"I'd like to! I just own outfits from the important ones, I guess. What did you think of the movie?"

Ponyboy shrugged. "It was all right." He didn't want to lie to her. She had sang that she wanted an _honest_ man, after all.

"Not much of a musical guy?" She tossed the popcorn tub away, and turned to look up at him. She wasn't as small as Pamela, but she wasn't long and gangly like her friend, either.

"Maybe if I found the right one."

"I hope they have more of these. They need a suggestion box, so we can tell them which movies we'd like to see. Then more people would come, maybe," the Girl thought aloud, as they made their way toward the door.

"Or at least we would," her friend added. "What's your name, anyway?"

Ponyboy had been dreading this. He never liked introducing himself to people. Sometimes he wished he could change his name to something plainer, like John or Tim. But then he thought about what his parents would think of that if they were alive. They had named him Ponyboy, and they had stuck with that name, because that's who he was.

"My name is Ponyboy." He sighed.

The girls looked at each other, not in a we-better-hide-our-giggles sort of way, but a solemn way, as if they agreed with him.

"Nice to meet you, Ponyboy," the Girl said. Gosh, he appreciated that so much. If he had a dime for every time someone said "What an unusual/interesting/unique/strange name," he would be a rich man. She just acted like he had said any other name, and he loved her for it. "My name's Alice."

 _Alice._

 _Alice._

 _Alice._

He examined her, as writers like to do with people. She did look like the only other Alice he knew, Alice in Wonderland. Her curly hair was blonde, her eyes were blue, and her hands were small. Pamela would have remarked that she would be good at milking their cow, with those little hands. He smiled. It fit her. She was lovely, and She was now Alice.

He felt like Tony in West Side Story. Maria had been hurried away from his arms, and when he heard her name, he repeated it to himself as he walked. He sang a whole song about it. _"All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word...Maria..."_

It felt like he pondered this Girl and her name for a long time, but it was really only a few seconds, as all these thoughts and feelings came rushing over him at once. "Alice. It's nice to meet you, too."

"And this is my best friend, June," Alice gestured to her friend. June gave Ponyboy a firm, businesslike handshake and a nod, which made him wonder if that was out of character for her, and also made him think of Two-Bit. She would sure get along with him, but he was probably too greasy for her.

"Alice! Hey, Alice!" a voice called from inside a red Firebird. Alice turned, her blonde hair turning with her in a fan behind her shoulders, and waved at the truck.

"Hey Brad! What are you doin' out at this hour?" She ran as fast as her high heels would let her.

"Don't make that face, it's just her brother," June hissed, snapping Ponyboy to the reality that his face was feeling very pinched. June had conjured up a pen out of nowhere and gave him a tiny piece of paper. "I gotta go. See ya later, Ponyboy." She shouted the last part, so Alice would hear.

"Bye, Ponyboy!" She didn't move from the truck, but raised her small hand in a wave. He grinned and waved back, and didn't look at the paper until he was back in his truck.

As he left the parking lot, glancing at Alice still talking to her brother in the Firebird, he repeated the contents of the note in his head.

 _She works at the Ruby Jewel diner, Tuesday-Saturday, from 6 am-2 pm._

 _Be Brave._


	5. Chapter 5

Pamela _loved_ going grocery shopping on Friday nights.

She purposely arrived at eight o' clock when she knew no normal person would be there. Most people in Tulsa used their Friday nights to go to football or basketball games or to recover from the work week at home, so this meant she was free to roam the aisles as she pleased, take as long as she pleased when smelling the different candles, and avoiding seeing people she knew in high school.

The store was cool and quiet at that hour; the kind of quiet that only exists in banks, libraries, graveyards, and your house before you put children in it. She could spend at least an hour in there without hearing whining or feeling someone tug at the bottom of her skirt.

As she steered the cart down the empty meat department, she sighed. Such bliss!

The feeling went away a bit when she got to the rice section and realized she couldn't get Darry's preferred kind off of the top shelf. Not just because she was tiny; she didn't mind stepping on the bottom shelf to give herself a boost up, but that behavior just wasn't a great idea when you're nine months pregnant.

The thing about being pregnant, though, is that you don't usually like to go anywhere that requires you to walk or stand for any amount of time. Though she tried not to complain too much, Darrel and Ponyboy both knew this and had, on multiple occasions, offered to go shopping for her, but the answer was always no. It wasn't that her husband was careless; he was always more than happy to make the trip for her, but whenever Darrel went to the store alone, he always came back with far too few vegetables and far too many boxes of chocolate cake mix. If Ponyboy had done the shopping by himself, he would have found something interesting in every aisle or spent too much time reading every. single. magazine. and then the groceries wouldn't be home in time for breakfast the next morning.

The compromise she had made with the men in the house was that she could shuffle around in her slippers, leaning on the cart, while Ponyboy followed her around like a puppy, reached things on the high shelves, and gathered up the rest of the items on her list. All she had to do was carry her list and boss him around (because the girl loved telling people to do the things on her lists more than she loved actually making them) and then give him her credit card. While he paid, she waited in the car, and then he brought the bags outside, packed them into the trunk, and then carried them into the house. It was a great arrangement; Pamela was able to get everything she needed but not have to do any of the work in obtaining it, and it gave Ponyboy a boost of confidence to take care of his sister-in-law.

Though this arrangement worked much better than sending Pony to the store by himself, it didn't stop him from finding fascinating things like clearance books and strangely colored Jell-O, so every few aisles Pamela had to call his name to come back to her.

The fluorescent lights paired with the dark night outside the windows gave the store a strange, other-worldly feeling, which made Pamela feel a little sick. She was so glad she didn't have to weave her cart around people having deep conversations in the middle of the aisle because she just wanted to get out of there. Trying not to look at the lights, she searched for Darrel's preferred type of rice. The man was very picky about his rice.

She groaned when she realized the rice had been moved from the middle shelf to the top. Glancing behind her, she noticed that her brother-in-law was nowhere in sight. Her fingertips barely brushed the bag when she rose up on her tiptoes, and she winced a little as she came back down. It was about a half a second before she was about to call the boy's name when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Let me help!" said a girl who seemed to be the embodiment of Pippi Longstocking herself. Long, loose braids stuck out behind her head, and she was decked out in a black jumper dress, a green cardigan, and knee socks with patches on the ankles. Freckles covered a face that was still trying to hold onto the tan from summertime, and she had long, skinny arms and legs. Pippi was quite a bit taller than Pamela, and started to reach up for the rice.

"Don't worry, dear, I can just call my errand boy." She grinned a little at Pippi's confused face, but then the girl shared a smile.

"Wow, where did you find one of those?"

"Well, all you have to do is marry a mama's boy with a couple of brothers, and one of them is bound to do the trick," Pamela joked, craning her neck to see if Ponyboy was coming down the end of the aisle. He wasn't.

Pippi stood up straighter and looked around, craning her neck too for a sight of this errand boy. "Does yours have any available brothers?"

"I guess the one who's with me is available, but he's already _my_ errand boy. You seem friendly enough though, I suppose we could share." Pamela was not one who normally made friends with random strangers in the grocery store (mostly because when she went, there were hardly any people to be found) but she just felt like this girl was good friend material, and she stuck out her hand. "My name's Pamela." She was sure this girl's name couldn't be Pippi, but part of her hoped.

"Nice to meet ya! I'm June." The redhead shook her hand and smiled back at her. "Now, where is Available Errand Boy? I'm not sure if I'm interested in sharing him if he's slacking on the job."

Pamela leaned against the cart, stretching her back, her belly bulging out in front of her. "Ah, I guess I should tell you, he can be very absentminded and he can't be trusted to run errands on his own, so you'll have to go along with him."

"Hmmm," June thought aloud, tapping her chin.

"Yeah, I know. But the nice thing is that he's tall and a little brawny, so I like to take him places where he can carry things or reach tall shelves."

All joking aside, June was beginning to like the sound of this errand boy; she was rather tall for a girl and had always wanted a boy who was taller than her, and she liked the idea of him being a little brawny, because then he could take her to concerts and she could sit on his broad shoulders. Maybe he even looked like Dirk Benedict; that was a plus, but not a deal breaker. She studied Pamela for a second and thought that it might be fun to have her as a sister-in-law.

 _June, you're getting carried away,_ her brain told her. _Boys are dumb, remember? And not only that, in that science magazine, it said that their brains aren't even fully developed until they're twenty-eight._

 _But MAYBE,_ she tried to tell herself, _maybe this is Pamela's husband's OLDER brother. He might already be twenty-eight or even older._ She winced a little bit; she didn't want a man who was more than five years older than her. A girl she knew from the bank, Jacquelyn, was dating the bank manager, a nice man who was EIGHT years older than her. He was practically geriatric.

Shaking these thoughts away, June asked, "Well, does he come when you call?"

Pamela smirked at her. This girl might be too sassy for Ponyboy, but she would certainly be a fun friend to have around. It got lonely hanging around the house with just five-year-olds all day, and she loved the idea of someone just coming to sit at the counter and talk while she made lunch or folded laundry or chased the girls around. Most of her girlfriends had their own little families now, and they didn't always have time to talk on the phone or do playdates. Also, on multiple occasions, the twins had overwhelmed and scared off the fancy-nancy children with names like Liam and Victoria. Pamela remembered Sodapop's antics and felt sad as she realized the new baby would never meet his uncle.

She shook those thoughts away and sized June up. Maybe this girl would be able to handle the craziness of the Curtis household, and maybe Pamela would have someone to talk to who wasn't five or a man. "Let's see!" She made a megaphone around her lips and called, "PONYBOY!"

Pamela frowned when she saw June turn white underneath her tan, and wondered if she was feeling ill, too. But then when Ponyboy, loping sheepishly, came down the aisle, then stopped in his tracks, she grew confused.

"Well. Well. Well," was all June said.

Ponyboy gulped.

"You know, I've been wondering when I would hear that name again," she said, taking a few steps toward him. "But I never thought I would hear it from a new friend I made in the grocery store. I thought I'd maybe hear it from...I don't know...Alice? Alice Orman? The girl you couldn't stop staring at through The Music Man and through most of West Side Story?"

Ponyboy gave a large wince at that, and June chuckled. "Yeah, that's right. I saw you." He blushed, and she quickly said, "I thought it was cute, and she did too, but that's not the point. The point is that I'm mad at you. You got her hopes up and I gave you the tools to seal this deal, to get to know her better, and you haven't done anything with them, have you?"

Pamela was very curious about what kind of tools June was talking about, who Alice Orman could be, and when Ponyboy could have ever watched a musical in his life, but she suddenly remembered walking past the bathroom door and hearing him sing "Tonight" in the shower, and then noticing him whistling "Seventy-Six Trombones" as he peeled potatoes for her. As much as she desperately wanted to pry, she also loved drama, so she smushed herself against the burlap bags of rice so she would blend in and not be noticed.

June knew the score, and she could almost hear the gears turning in Ponyboy's head as he tried to craft a response. She knew, without a doubt, that his next words would be-

"I'm sorry." And he looked it. His brows were furrowed and her green eyes did not look at the ground but bore into hers, pleadingly. At that, June lost her tough exterior, because dumb boys never looked that sorry, and she knew somewhere in her heart of hearts that the boy really did want to go see Alice. She didn't know this, but he carried that note around in his pocket every day (not just his wallet-he physically picked it up and put it into his pocket every morning) even though he already had its contents memorized. She didn't know that he drove past the diner every morning as he took the long way to work, knowing she was there if it wasn't on a Monday. She didn't know that in the morning, he stood in front of the mirror, wearing nothing but a pair of too-long pajama bottoms, practicing what he was going to say if he finally made his move.

Just that morning, Ponyboy had been thinking and decided that _hello_ was too formal, _hey_ was too juvenile, and _salutations_ was too King James Bible, so that didn't leave him with a lot of greeting options. _He_ personally didn't mind starting a conversation without beating around the bush-small talk was uncomfortable and a waste of time. He would rather dive into deeper things, like books that have shaped her life, or what she thought about the long war that had just ended. He felt more comfortable with that.

But did Alice?

Ponyboy didn't want to explain all of this to June-she was already peeved at him for not following the instructions on her note. It had been nearly three weeks, and there was no excuse. "I really want to see her, I just...don't...know how to do this." He sighed heavily. "How do you even know that she would be happy if I just showed up at her work to see her? I'm practically a stranger."

Pamela, whose lip was so sore from being bitten, wanted to interrupt this with so many questions, but she held her tongue. She hoped June would have a response that would clear some things up for her.

June thought quietly for a moment before she spoke, which was a first for her. Flashes of the pink wall with "BUT FIRST, YOU" scribbled onto it with dark pencil, the accidental timely arrival to the movies just so Alice wouldn't miss him, and of course their multiple drives past the movie house every week in order to stay up to date on any midnight showings. All of those things would have answered his question, but might have overwhelmed him, so June just stuck with, "I live with the gal. I know. Can't ya just trust me?"

"Well, I hardly know you."

June blew her bangs off her forehead in frustration. "Ponyboy, what reason have I given you NOT to trust me?"

Begrudgingly, Ponyboy acknowledged that with a shrug of his shoulder. He blushed a little and quieted his voice when he asked, "But what am I supposed to do first, when I get there? I know, that's probably a stupid question, but I don't even know her-"

"Would you like to, though?"

Pamela got goosebumps when she saw Ponyboy's eyes widen seriously, and he softly said, "Yes."

"Then just say hi." June hopped over to Pamela and gave her a hug. "And with that, I will leave you. Goodbye, new friend. As long as Ponyboy does his job-" she threw a look at him over her shoulder "-I hope that Alice and I will be seeing a lot of you."

June leaned closer to Pamela's ear and said, "Please, PLEASE. Whatever you do, make sure he goes tomorrow. I'm not going to be able to keep this a secret for long." Walking backwards, she looked at Ponyboy, pointing a threatening finger toward him. "I'll be expecting to hear your name again tomorrow, this time, from Alice's lips." With a flip of her braids, she was gone.

Pamela turned to her brother-in-law and pointed at the rice still sitting on the top shelf. Avoiding her eyes, Ponyboy grabbed it and set it in the cart. "Well, Pony, I would like to have a talk, but I think you need to go see this Alice first before that happens." As much as she wanted to poke and prod and squeal, she kept quiet, and as they walked to the end of the aisle, she slipped her arm around his waist and leaned her head on his arm. She knew he had thinking to do.


End file.
